In one case, the 70-something headquarters VP of a group for the disabled operated by a religious group was given four years probation for repeatedly molesting the 12-year-old daughter of one of a disabled man he was caring for. He allegedly molested one of her friends, too.

The worst part about this is that when she filed a complaint against her attacker, her own father got her to retract it, telling her that the attacker had raised a counter-complaint and that he’d go to jail if she didn’t say she’d made a mistake. The father did this after the attacker cut off financial support for the family. The police, much to their credit, indicted the attacker anyway for molesting a minor, a crime you don’t need a complaint for.

In sentencing the cretin, Seoul South District Court said the attacker should be punished sternly since not only did he molest a 12-year-old, but he’d also denied the charges and failed to show remorse. The victim, however, did not want the attacker punished, it was his first crime, and he was old and vision-impaired. So instead of prison time, he got four years probation. In August, a Seoul court gave a 71-year-old guy three years probation for molesting a 16-year-old boy.

This wasn’t the only such case. In December, the head of a taekwondo school in Jeju-do got three years of probation for habitually molesting 8-year-old girls because he’d settled with the parents.

Related

If someone molested my children, I’d be happy to take their money. Of course, if would be because I was rifling through their wallet after killing them. I’m very suspicious of people who think the matter can be settled with cash unless the amount were strictly related to costs of medical/psychological care, with any extra being held in trust for the victim. If Mom and Dad are going to spend that money on anything else, then that’s little better than pimping out their own child.

RElgin

I adamantly agree with your sentiments and seriously wonder at a society that does not make this distinction that you have made in the latter part of your comment.

Cloudfive

If they were prosecuted shouldn’t their names be published? If the victim is less than sixteen, the rapists should be punished regardless of the victim’s wishes. It’s a matter of protecting society. Pedophiles are known repeat offenders. It’s these 변태 새끼 들 이 that the netizens should hunt down and make life a living hell, not dog-poop girl.

Creo69

Should be about three more posts until “The Korean” comes in to tell us all how “this is how the legal system works in every country and settlements of this type are common.”

South Korea still needs a generation to die off to straighten some of this stuff out.

Anonymous_Joe

If the victim is less than sixteen, the rapists should be punished regardless of the victim’s wishes. It’s a matter of protecting society.

That could be a thread ender. Is there anything to really discuss after that? Well, besides “Korea, WTF???”

SalarymaninSeoul

What?! You would kill a molestor? But what about his, ahem, ahem, cough, cough, HUMAN RIGHTS?

SalarymaninSeoul

TK took his ball and went home after his commie lost the election. TK would insist molestors have human rights, too, doncha know, and that we must deal withem in a humane, progressive way.Afterall, punishment is so old fashioned and so conservativee..we must see the human beauty even in these poor people (the molestors)

Andrew Barbour

No sweat! As a murderer myself, I’d have them too.

SalarymaninSeoul

Touche:)

http://www.gofundme.com/1k98a8 Jakgani

Parents know about this – and sometimes Korean parents actually get their kids to become close to an adult
hoping the adult will “touch” their kid- so they can make a complaint – and get a payout from the “Perpetrator”

Not always the case – but it does happen a lot – very similar to China.

Also Koreans just paying off their victims – that is so Asian – most Asian countries do it.

In China if a car hits a person – the car will often reverse again and again over the person whilst they are on the ground

why? It’s cheaper to pay for the victims funeral – than to pay for the victims medical (hospital) fees.

Jang

Parents as Pimps pimping the kids.

Silver Surfer

Referring to a child molester as a ‘cretin’ seems to me praising them with faint damnation. It hardly needs saying that this is something much uglier than mere ‘stupidity’.

Martin

It’s a sick society that would settle for cash, enabling the molestor to ply his trade again and again. I think chemcical castration doesn’t go far enough. Break out the hog shears and cut those ba$tards

Anonymous_Joe

It’s a sick society that would settle for cash, enabling the molestor to ply his trade again and again.

I am going to anger a whole lot of Koreans with this observation, but I’ve found that Koreans, despite their 우리 pronoun, don’t have a sense of we. They have a sense of relationships in concentric circles. If someone is outside an inner circle, then screw them regardless of how small the gain to the inner circle and how great the cost to the outer.

Hypothetical others’ hypothetical children are outside the inner circle so let loose the molesting predator without qualm or conscience. For all their 우리, I cannot imagine a less sense of country, community, or neighbor. I know that sounds ugly, but it’s also something that I’ve observed.

As I hit “post” ever so hesitantly….

YangachiBastardo

Yes you have a point but i still prefer a society that has no sense of collective good to one with no respect for individual freedom and by the way wasn’t the MJ case (the first time he got in trouble) settled the same way ?

Anonymous_Joe

If you consider 20 million dollars (in 1993!) the same way.

Anonymous_Joe

Yes you have a point but i still prefer a society that has no sense of collective good to one with no respect for individual freedom

I don’t see that Korean culture has a sense of collective good and certainly don’t see that Korean culture has respect for individual freedom. The Korean collective (I know the Borg connotations are there) good seems more for maintaining the hierarchy and the good for a select few in maintaining that hierarchy than an atruistic sense of good for the individual members or members as a whole..

I also think that in societies that have respect for individual freedoms many individuals will voluntarily act for the collective good. Americans certainly have more a sense of individualism and volunteerism as choice. Who among us hasn’t volunteered in university, been a Big Brother, coached little league, shoveled our elderly neighbor’s sidewalk in winter, cleaned a street (and not court ordered), tutored literacy, been a scout leader, worked at the church, volunteered at a soup kitchen, helped on cookie drives, worked the phones for a pledge drive, …donated money?

I had a university friend, now a philosophy professor, who at the dining tables would spout that we did these things out of a sense of self-interest (as opposed to selflessness) so that we could feel good about ourselves. OK, whatever. I’m good with that.

YangachiBastardo

I feel more free in Korea (despite the ubiquitous cameras) than in Europe or America. despite all their obsession for hierarchy Confucian societies seem somehow strangely tolerant to me.

let me do a simple comparison:

in Korea i can drink to stupidity (sorry guys i like that) and nobody gives a shit. In my my country i risk to get mugged if i do that.

In Korea taxes are low, so i’m free from a predatory state.

In Korea setting up a simple business like a 식당 requires almost no bureaucray and paper work comparing to the West.

In Korea (and in Japan and Taiwan too), despite the common stereotype for status symbol obsession, i see tons of people dressed in absurd ways like they put on whatever rag they laid their hands on. Again i can’t do the same here.

In Korea incarceration rate is a fraction of what it is in Europe (let alone the US)

Yes i like even the Korean penchant for street fighting: nobody stick their nose into whatever issue 2 adults may have with eachother.

In Korea i noticed executives tend to be young, younger than their counterparts in the Western world, so there must be less respect for age-based hierarchy than people assume.

Streets in Korea are noisy nightime, people yell and have fun, even more so in China, comparing to any Asian major city even the liveliest Western cities look like a mix between a Stalin-era gulag and a geriatric ward.

I like Korea, i like East Asia in general, i feel much freer there than i do at “home” (HAHAHAHA)

BY the way one of the things i disliked the most about life in America (one of the few, don’t get me wrong i thank the God every day i had the privilege to live in your country) was that suburban obsession with PTA, community activities, neighbourhood watching etc. i have the feeling i will be free to be as anti-social as i want in Asia, that is to me a priceless freedom

Anonymous_Joe

Yangchi, I understand your point about suburban participation. Virtually any U.S. suburb would be a tiny town compared to the population of almost any Korean city. The part of the country I’m from is among the most expensive, so there aren’t so many interlopers and people’s path’s cross. That leads to this sense of community and, for lack of a better term, pressure.

Trainer

Wonderful – the rage of internet vigilantes and how they would punish child molesters!

I’m curious. Are they aware that their wholly disproportionate anger is very likely an attempt to cover their own desires to have sex with children? I mean :

If someone molested my children, I’d be happy to take their money. Of
course, if would be because I was rifling through their wallet after
killing them.

Wow! I certainly wouldn’t be comfortable having “Andrew Barbour” (real name?) or “Martin” too close to any children I was concerned about.

SalarymaninSeoul

So, if you hate cockroaches does that mean you want to be a cockroach? Or mice? Or if you hate cancer does that mean you want to have cancer? Does this sort of “he hates it so he’s in denial” logic apply to everything we may dislike?

Mrs_Choi

This is about as morally reprehensible as it gets. It may be even worse than the parents sexually abusing the kids themselves. I do think there is something fundamentally fucked up in the brains of child molesters, though I am loathe to excuse it. But what could possess the parents to profit off of their suffering? It feels like this happens too frequently to be cases of sociopathic parents having kids who just so happen to be victimized. Makes me want to vomit.

Andrew Barbour

I get no credit for actually having –and loving deeply– two children of my own (boy age 4 and girl age 3)?

You know, back in high school, my then-girlfriend had been subject to a long period of sexual abuse when she was little (at age 6, her 14-year old cousin forced her into sexual activity under threat of his killing Santa Claus), and I developed a pretty substantial hate for molesters while we were dating. I’ve been fortunate never to have been molested myself, but knowing people who have been, I can tell you it fucks you up permanently. It kills a part of the victim’s soul. It drives people to suicide. That girl I mentioned had tried to kill herself once, and on another occasion asked me to help her do it (I did not). You don’t listen to pain like that without getting a little bloodlust for the person/people responsible for it.

I’ll give you credit for wanting to protect children you care about from threats (real or perceived), but don’t give me grief for considering bloody vengeance legitimate if someone were to hurt my kids.